Far from threatening to overtake the US anytime soon, China is wrestling with major problems that threaten internal stability. We hear what new leadership and the latest five-year plan could mean for China itself and its relations with the rest of the world. Also, Bank of America thaws frozen foreclosures, and Insurance companies and healthcare reform.

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Far from threatening to overtake the US anytime soon, China is wrestling with major problems that threaten internal stability. We hear what new leadership and the latest five-year plan could mean for China itself and its relations with the rest of the world. Also, Bank of America thaws frozen foreclosures. On Reporter's Notebook, are insurance companies already exploiting loopholes in healthcare reform? Should President Obama take action?

Banner image: A Chinese bank clerk counts a stack of one-hundred yuan notes for a customer at a bank in Hefei, east China's Anhui province on October 14, 2010. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images

China's been a major engine of growth in the weakened global economy, but, today, in the hopes of slowing things down, it stunned economists and rattled stock markets worldwide by raising interest rates for the first time in three years. Though China's economy grows fast, a population equal to that of the US is moving from the countryside into the cities. Can the government maintain control? China watchers are trying to analyze the leadership choices and new five-year plan determined in four days of high-level, secret meetings by 300 top Communist Party leaders. What's next for economic growth, the environment and housing prices? Will censorship give way to greater openness? What about competition with the US?

Widespread reports of improprieties led big banks to suspend foreclosures earlier this month. But Bank of America, which services about 20 percent of the nation's mortgages says it is starting up again. Binyamin Applebaum is domestic correspondent for the New York Times.